


shades of monochrome

by renecdote



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Crying, Gen, Happy Ending, Hurt Bruce, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Robin Dick, Uncle Clark to the rescue, Worry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-18
Updated: 2020-04-25
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:54:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23195086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/renecdote/pseuds/renecdote
Summary: He can’t even think, let alone think how to act. His brain is like a broken record, stuck on a loop of blood and ringing gunshots and Bruce is going to die.“It’s going to be okay,“ Alfred says. But it isn’t. How can it be?Dick takes a deep breath and screams for Clark as loud as he can.(The one where Bruce gets shot and Dick cries a lot.)
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson & Clark Kent
Comments: 108
Kudos: 479





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lookforanewangle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lookforanewangle/gifts).



> For the wonderful Lyss <3 This fic got a little bit out of hand and is subsequently much later than promised, but I hope you enjoy!

The clouds roll in just before dinner. Dick presses his face to the window in the kitchen, frowning out at the blackening sky. It’s so typical of Gotham. Tonight is the first patrol of the summer vacation, a night when Dick doesn’t have a curfew and can stay out with Batman as long as he likes, so of course it looks like it’s going to rain.

“Chin up, Master Dick,” Alfred says when Dick heaves a dramatic sigh. “It’s the first night of the holidays, not the last, there will be plenty more patrols with fine weather.”

“Bruce will still let me go out with him though, won’t he?” Dick asks, looking hopefully over his shoulder. 

“I’m sure he will.”

Dick turns back to the window, but with a little less melancholy this time. Alfred is right, as he so often is. Dick doesn’t even mind patrolling in the rain that much. Sure, it makes everything slippery, and it’s hard to run quietly if you’re splashing through puddles, but when they stop at the top of a building and Bruce lets Dick hide from the rain under his cape? That makes all the slipping and splashing worth it. 

Dick breathes against the window to make the glass fog up, then uses his finger to draw a looming Batman with a smiling face sticking out of his cape. “Where is Bruce anyway?” he asks. “He was s’posed to help me with training this afternoon.”

“I’m sure Master Bruce will be home shortly,” Alfred says. Dick watches him chop potatoes into chunks with a few quick slices then reach for the carrots lined up neatly beside the cutting board. 

There is something reassuring about watching Alfred cook. Maybe because it’s a constant no matter what else is going on. The sky could be falling and Alfred would probably still be in the kitchen preparing dinner. Or maybe it’s just because Dick always knows there’s going to be something good for him to eat when Alfred is done.

“Do you need help?” he asks, heels idly bouncing against the cupboard doors under the counter.

Alfred gestures at the sink with his knife. “Wash up,” he directs, “then you can give me a hand finishing these vegetables.”

Dick jumps down and hurries to wash his hands, eager for something to do, while o utside the window, the first flashes of lightning illuminate the sky.

**

The streets that night are miserably wet. The thunderstorm passed over Gotham pretty quickly, but it left behind a lingering drizzle that makes Dick’s hair stick to his scalp and his boots squeak. He grimaces. What a wonderful start to the holidays. Bruce let him come out on patrol though, so he doesn’t complain just in case it gets him sent home early. Cold and wet is loads better than at home and bored.

“At least this rain will keep some of the bad guys off the street,” Dick notes. That’s one good thing about bad weather: crime doesn’t like it much either.

Bruce grunts. Dick takes it for agreement.

Batman isn’t talkative on the best of nights, but tonight he seems to be composed of more monosyllabic grunts than usual. He barely says a word when they stop by the signal to get a case from Commissioner Gordon, letting Dick talk the commissioner’s ear off without even a token protest. 

“Do you remember that robbery at the Hansen Technologies warehouse a few weeks ago?” Gordon asks them.

“Sure,” Dick says for both of them, trying to remember whether he actually did hear about that one. There are so many robberies in Gotham it’s hard to keep track of them all.

“Well, among the items stolen was a crate of bullets. Some newfangled armour-piercing design or something of the like—to be honest, I didn’t understand a word of the science jargon involved. They were supposed to go to the military at the end of the week, but the thieves got there first.” 

Gordon opens the folder in his hands and passes Batman a photograph over Dick’s head. He stretches up on his toes to get a glimpse, but can’t see much before Bruce tilts it away. He frowns. Something gruesome, probably, Bruce always tries to protect him from those ones no matter how much Dick tells him he can handle it.

“Earlier this morning, two of those missing bullets were pulled out of this guy,” Gordon continues, with a nod at the photograph. “A couple of my detectives found him up near Amusement Mile.”

Bruce hands the photograph back. “We’ll check it out,” he promises. His cape flicks out as he turns and melts into the shadows. “Come, Robin.”

Dick rolls his eyes; an over the top, full-body movement for Commissioner Gordon’s benefit. Great social etiquette does not Batman have. Gordon’s moustache twitches like he’s trying not to smile.

“Always a pleasure seeing you, commish!” Dick chimes. Then with a dazzling flash of yellow and a whoop of joy, Robin is over the side of the roof and racing after his mentor.

**

It doesn’t take long for Dick to fall into the silence as well. Usually he doesn’t mind talking for two, but the fun and exciting first patrol of the summer vacation isn’t so fun or exciting with Bruce in a Mood. Dick doesn’t capitalise that lightly; he hasn’t seen Bruce brood this bad since Dick got suspended for using his new ninja skills to fight bullies at school.

It’s not even that Bruce is upset or angry though. He’s just... 

Distracted is the word Dick would use to describe anyone else, but he has trouble applying it to Bruce. Bruce is always so focused, so in control, so... Batman. The fierce dark knight, cool as a cucumber, emotive as a plank of wood, unmoving as a rock in a hard place. Alfred once described Bruce on a case as being like a dog with a bone—and a particularly stubborn dog at that. Personally, Dick liked to amuse himself comparing Bruce to the cat from Tom and Jerry, chasing clues the way Tom chased Jerry, his fancy gadgets playing all the crazy contraptions the cat rigged up. Except then it falls apart a bit because Batman always gets his mouse in the end.

This one included.

It’s a short fight. Even going in with only a quick moment of surveillance beforehand, Batman and Robin are good. Scary good. The kind of good that has dropped Gotham’s crime rate thirty percent in the last five years. (Dick didn’t think that was a lot at first, but then he saw the numbers for just how much crime Gotham had.)

Tying up the bad guys doesn’t take long, then they’re sneaking out through the roof when the rumble of an old, stuttering engine draws close and stops outside. Dick peers over the edge of the roof alongside Bruce. The man who gets out form behind the wheel is tall, dark stubble incongruent with the messy top of blond hair peeking out from under his Gotham Knights cap. Dick shakes his head. A baseball cap at night—that’s like throwing up a neon sign saying ‘look at me! I’m doing something suspicious!’. At least he doesn’t do the super obvious look around to make sure he’s not arousing suspicious before he strides into the building they just exited out of.

“He’s going to see all his friends tied up and know we’ve been here,” Dick whispers to Bruce. 

Bruce, jaw as inscrutable as always, doesn’t reply. 

The man comes back out, the previously low brim of his baseball cap pushed up and a gun held firmly in his hands.

“I know you’re still here!” he shouts. He’s not waving the gun around like a crazy person, just holding it steadily, professionally, ready to fire at a moment’s notice as he pivots slowly, scanning the rooftops.

_Aw damn,_ Dick thinks, _this moron isn’t going to be as easy to surprise as his friends._

“Stay here.”

The sharp words, delivered with a disappearing swish of Batman’s cape, bounce futilely against Dick’s ears. Like hell he’s going to let Bruce go traipsing into danger by himself. The whole point of Robin (other than kicking bad guy butt) is to be Batman’s backup. Dick waits just a beat then creeps toward the edge of the roof, peering down into the blocky shadows of the alley stretching down below. 

Halfway down the creaking fire escape, the bad guy spots them.

“Robin,” Batman growls. It’s a warning and a _warning_ all rolled into one. Layers of _watch out!_ and _why aren’t you following my orders?_ clanging together in that single hoarse shout.

**

The bang of the gun firing, when Dick remembers it later, seems louder than it probably was.

Dick is all motion and instinct, flying forward to disarm the thug and knock him down. It’s not until he has a knee on the unconscious man’s back, zip-tying his hands together, that he realises Batman hadn’t moved with him. That’s not exactly unusual; there is one thug and two of them, not a takedown that really needs to be tag-teamed. But the silence rings in the aftermath of the gunshot in a way that makes Dick uneasy. 

“Batman?”

No reply. 

Dick’s heart starts beating faster even as he tells it to calm down, he’s just overreacting, he hasn’t even looked over his shoulder yet. But he had been looking right at his parents when they died, and there is a little voice in his head that says if he just doesn’t look now, it won’t be happening again. 

He can’t stay frozen in this moment forever though. He has to look. He has to—he has to know.

Bruce is on the ground. He hadn’t been when the shot was fired, Dick is pretty sure about that. He looks up and sees the broken, rusted edges where there was a railing on the fire escape, now crushed under Bruce’s weight.

“Crap,” Dick curses and Bruce doesn’t scold him. Bruce doesn’t say anything, he just sort of grunts as he tries to sit up. Dick dashes forward immediately, skinning his knees as he lands hard on the concrete beside his partner. 

“Woah there, big guy, not so fast,” he says, pushing against Bruce’s shoulders like he could actually do anything to keep him down if Bruce was determined to get up. It seems that bullet knocked all the fight right out of him though and he just lets his head fall back the few inches he’d managed to lift it. That scares Dick more than a little.

“Agent A?” he says into his comm, trying to keep all the scared out of his voice but not really succeeding. “I think Batman has been shot.”

The response is immediate and concerned. “ _You think?_ ”

Dick runs his hands over Bruce’s body, frighteningly unresistant to the coarse medical examination, and it isn’t long before they come away wet, red when he holds them up to get a better look. He swallows. “I’m sure. It’s, um, I think it’s bad, there’s a lot of blood. He fell too and it wasn’t really that far and some cardboard boxes broke his fall but he may have hit his head because he’s not really responding and—”

Dick has to stop and take a breath. He can feel himself starting to panic and tries to tamp it down, but that just makes the fluttering in his chest grow stronger. He wishes Bruce would move or talk or do _something_ , even if that something was screaming or crying in pain.

“ _I’m sending the Batmobile to your coordinates,_ ” Alfred says. “ _The alleyway you’re in is too narrow for it though, you’ll have to get yourself and Master Bruce to the entrance. Can you do that?_ ”

Dick nods. It’s an automatic kind of reaction, and when he remembers that Alfred can’t see him so he has to give a verbal affirmation, it’s a little harder to choke the words out. But Bruce is hurt and Dick is Robin so he has to do it. There isn’t anyone else around to do it.

“Okay,” Dick says, trying to reassure himself as well as Alfred. “Okay. Get him out of the alley. Gotcha. I can do that.”

**

He can’t do it. Dick has put on a lot of muscle since he first put on the Robin costume, but Bruce is almost entirely muscle, twice as tall as Dick and three times as heavy. Three times _too_ heavy.

Some backup he is turning out to be, Dick thinks sourly. Would Bruce have even gotten shot if Dick had just stayed where he was told? Dick probably distracted him. If he hadn’t had to shout a warning, he could have moved faster. Maybe he was even moving toward Dick, trying to push him out of the way instead of moving out of the danger himself. That’s just the kind of selfless, heroic thing Bruce would get shot doing.

Dick’s eyes are burning and he blinks furiously. He’s Robin, dammit, he’s not supposed to cry. He’s supposed to be calm and in control and—and he should have been able to see the danger, should have been able to stop this from happening, but he didn’t and now Bruce had been shot and Dick can’t even fix it. Can’t stop the bleeding and can’t drag Bruce to the car and—

“ _It’s going to be alright, Robin_ ” Alfred says in his ear.

Dick flinches, in the shadows where no one can see. He doesn’t feel much like Robin right now. Robin is supposed to be strong, he’s supposed to be able to save people, but Dick can’t even drag Bruce a few measly feet along the rain-slicked ground. 

“He’s too heavy,” he says, words quivering around choking breaths. “I can’t carry him and—and there’s so much blood, I can’t—”

“ _Breathe, Master Dick,_ ” Alfred cuts in, with an evenness that doesn’t quite ring true. 

Dick remembers that Alfred has been dealing with situations like this far longer than Dick has even been around. His calm is practiced, but no amount of practice can completely scrub the worry around the edges of his voice; not when Bruce is bleeding out (maybe, probably, definitely dying) and all he can do is listen.

Dick takes off his cape and presses down on Bruce’s chest, as hard as his skinny arms can manage, but he’s soon trembling with the effort and the yellow cape is quickly turning red. He’s never going to be able to wear it again without feeling the weight of Bruce’s blood on his shoulders. The weight of those seconds where he could have done something— _anything_ —different. He could have tackled the gunman sooner, or pushed Bruce out of the way, or, or—something, there must have been something he could have done better.

_Is this what Bruce felt like?_ he wonders, _the night his parents were shot?_

“I’m sorry,” Dick whispers. “I’m sorry, B, please don’t die.”

Bruce’s lips twitch and his head moves, something like a groan torn from his throat. 

“Bruce?” Dick asks shakily. Tears and snot are running down his face, but he can’t wipe them away without taking pressure off the wound. “Bruce? Are you awake?”

Bruce’s head moves again and his fingers twitch like they’re searching, but then he falls still. Not really awake, maybe just dreaming? Dick doesn’t even know if unconscious people dream. 

“Bruce?” he says again. He lifts one hand from the wound, ignoring the ache stretching through his palm, and wraps his fingers around Bruce’s hand instead. It stays stubbornly limp.

Dick doesn’t know what to do—he doesn’t know how to—to—

He can’t even think, let alone think how to act. His brain is like a broken record, stuck on a loop of blood and ringing gunshots and _Bruce is going to die_.

“ _It’s going to be okay,_ “ Alfred says. But it _isn’t_. How can it be?

Dick takes a deep breath and screams for Clark as loud as he can.

It only takes a few seconds, but they might be the longest seconds of his life. Longer even than the eternity he spent kneeling on a trapeze platform, watching horror twist his parents’ faces as they fell to their death. Bruce’s blood continues to pool and Dick continues to cry—and then the seconds are over and Superman is kneeling on the other side of Bruce’s body. 

“Robin,” he says and just the sound of his voice makes Dick start crying harder, great heaving sobs that tear out of his chest with such force it hurts. Clark hesitates, hand twitching to reach out, but then he clamps it down over the cape balled against Bruce’s side instead. “I’m going to take him to Doctor Thompkins. I’ll be right back.”

By the time Dick starts nodding, they’re already gone.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“You know, Bruce is one of the strongest people I know,” Clark tells him. “He’s not going to give up just because someone got off a lucky shot.”_
> 
> _Dick knows that. He does. But it helps to hear it too._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so this is now not the final chapter, but! It is getting happier! In the interest of not making you guys wait another month for me to wrangle the ending into shape, I decided to split this fic into three chapters instead of just two. Final part will hopefully be finished soon (uni permitting).
> 
> Special shoutout to Rach for listening to all my rambling about what hugging Clark would feel like. Love you babe ❤❤

Superman’s cape is a softer material than Batman’s. Not as heavy, but warmer, more like a blanket. If Dick closes his eyes, he can pretend that’s what it is, just a blanket he’s wrapped in, curled up by the clock in the study or in the chair in front of the bat computer, waiting for Bruce to get home from patrol. He’s just had a nightmare and Bruce will ask why he’s still up, then make him hot cocoa before tucking him back into bed.

It wasn’t a nightmare though. It was all too real. And it’s Clark, not Bruce, who presses a warm mug into his hands, filled with gently steaming tea instead of cocoa. He waits until Dick worms his fingers out of the blanket-cape to cradle it, then sits down in the plastic chair beside him.

“Alfred will be here shortly,” he says. “He’s going to bring you a change of clothes.”

Dick is still wearing most of his uniform but the gloves are gone, peeled off and tossed in the bin because they were too thoroughly coated in blood to be worth saving. Even if the stains would come out, Dick doesn’t think he’d want to wear them again. Not when he’d see Bruce bleeding out every time he looked down at his hands. 

(He keeps seeing that anyway, even without the gloves, but he hadn’t mentioned that when Clark suggested they throw them away.)

Clark had helped scrub the blood off Dick’s legs with a warm towel, while Dick sat on the edge of his seat and shook. He’d kept his eyes closed, not wanting to see, not wanting to remember, and he’d startled when Clark put the cape around his shoulders. He thinks he might have mumbled a thanks, but he’s not sure. It hasn’t helped much with the shivering. It’s ridiculous that he thinks being wrapped in Batman’s cape probably would.

Dick stares down into his tea, its too-milky surface trembling with him. When Clark takes away the cup and put his arms around Dick instead, he turns his face into Clark’s shoulder, closes his eyes and lets himself hide there for a while. 

Clark doesn’t hug the way Bruce does. He’s more careful, like he’s afraid of breaking Dick, and he’s warmer, but not soft in all the right places. It’s like hugging memory foam, firm and supportive, softening a bit when Dick squeezes the arms wrapped around Clark’s back, but always bouncing back to solid. He’s always wondered how much of that is just Kryptonian genetics and how much is Clark being scared to relax too much into a hug in case he forgets his own strength. Dick always likes to hug back extra tight just in case it’s the latter, so that Clark knows he isn’t as breakable as he looks.

“I was so scared,” Dick whispers. “I didn’t know what to do.”

“Can I tell you a secret?” Clark asks. 

Dick nods, cheek scratching against flannel. Superman had disappeared beneath Clark Kent’s glasses and deceptively casual clothes as soon as he’d brought Dick back to the clinic. Dick had almost asked if it was because he didn’t like seeing Bruce’s blood on himself either, but then he’d decided he didn’t want to know. 

“I was scared too,” Clark admits. Dick’s breath rushes out of him and the arms around him get a little bit tighter. “But my ma always says it’s okay to be scared, that it means you’ve got good survival instincts. And if you’re scared for someone else, it means you’ve got a good heart.”

That doesn’t really help. Dick thinks about the words, thinks as hard as he can, but they just sort of settle like petals on the surface of a pond. Pretty and colourful, disguising some of the murkiness below, but not really doing anything to feed the fish or the ducks dependent on the pond for survival.

And knowing that Clark—that _Superman_ —was scared as well? That just makes Dick start crying all over again. He didn’t think he had any tears left, still hollow and wrung out from all the ones he shed before, but here they are sliding down his cheeks and soaking into Clark’s shirt.

“Dickie?” Clark sounds a little alarmed. “Aw no, did I say the wrong thing? I’m sorry, I’m not very good at this.”

Dick shakes his head, tries to communicate without choked words that it’s not Clark’s fault. It’s just—everything. All of this. 

“You know, Bruce is one of the strongest people I know,” Clark tells him. “He’s not going to give up just because someone got off a lucky shot.”

Dick knows that. He does. But it helps to hear it too.

He’s managed to settle down to the occasional sniffle by the time there is a quick rap on the door. Clark gently, reluctantly, pulls away from Dick and goes to unlock the door. 

“Where is he?” Dick hears Alfred ask. Then before Clark can answer, he’s coming through the doorway into Leslie’s office. “Oh, my dear boy.”

Dick finds himself wrapped up in a fierce hug and he clings to Alfred with all his strength. When Alfred pulls back a moment later, it’s with a determination that does more to calm Dick’s roiling emotions than anything else has. 

“I have to go in and assist Doctor Thompkins,” Alfred says. “Mister Kent can take you home or—“

“I’m staying,” Dick interrupts. He balls his fists by his sides, ready to fight for it if he has to.

Alfred’s eyes crinkle. “I thought you might say that,” he says. “I brought you a change of clothes. If you need anything else, I’m sure Mister Kent can fetch it.” Then his focus shifts to Clark as he adds, “Make sure he eats something. Sleeps, if he can.”

Clark nods. “I’ve got him, Al.”

Alfred nods back, as firm as his hug had been. Then with a quick squeeze of Dick’s shoulder, he’s gone. Dick slumps back down into his chair, feeling lost while everything happens around him.

**

Clark takes a phone call and Dick doesn’t listen in (because that would be rude—and because his hearing isn’t quite good enough to hear through walls), but he does close his eyes and listen to the blurry sound of Clark’s voice. He almost sounds like Bruce, if Dick doesn’t concentrate too hard. He feels himself drifting and snaps his eyes back open, rubbing at them as he sits up. He doesn’t want to sleep. He needs to wait for Bruce to wake up.

“I’ll let you know,” Clark is saying as he comes back into the tiny, cramped office. “Yeah, thanks. See you tomorrow. Yeah. Bye.”

“You don’t have to stay,” Dick says quietly. He’s not even sure that it’s really his place to say it, but if Clark has somewhere more important he needs to be…

Clark just shakes his head. “Of course I’m staying.” It’s firm and decisive, the kind of voice that says not even wild aliens could drag him away. “It was just Lois checking in. I was supposed to be finishing an article with her when I heard you call.”

“Oh.” Dick scuffs his foot against his ground, pixie boots replaced by thick socks. “Was it important?”

Clark shakes his head. Then he shakes it again, somehow more insistently. “You called me,” he says. “Nothing is more important, okay?”

Dick searches his face and sees the truth etched into it. “Okay,” he repeats.

Clark tousles his hair. “Good.”

Dick turns his gaze back to the wall separating them from the operating room. “Can you see what they’re doing in there?” he asks, part honest curiosity, part sure he already knows that the answer is yes. 

Clark looks at the wall himself, look right through it even, brows drawing together as he carefully peels back the layers of reality with his x-ray vision. “It looks like everything is going okay,” he says, chewing on his lip. His eyes flick back to Dick. “He’s in good hands, Dickie.”

Dick frowns down at the floor. He knows that. He just feels… useless. Like he should be doing more. It’s his fault that Bruce is lying on a table in there, after all, and all he can do about it is wait. He sighs, rubbing at eyes that feel gritty and sore. His blanket-cape slips off one shoulder and he tugs at it irritably. He’s tired and upset and tired from being upset and--

And he just wants Bruce to be okay.

Maybe Clark has secret psychic powers, or uncle powers, or maybe it’s just written all over Dick’s face, but whatever it is he seems to know exactly what Dick is feeling. “C’mere,” he murmurs, and Dick finds himself pulled back against Clark’s side, almost into his lap really, the cape tucked firmly around him.

“Why don’t you close your eyes for a bit?” Clark suggests. He adds quickly, like he knows what Dick’s protests are going to be, “You don’t have to sleep, just… close your eyes for a bit, okay? The time might go a bit faster.”

Dick wants to fight it, but he feels too exhausted to try. “You’ll tell me when Bruce is okay?”

“Of course I will.” Clark kisses the top of his head and it’s so much like what Bruce would do that Dick almost starts crying again. “I promise.”

Dick still doesn’t want to sleep—doesn’t want to miss anything, doesn’t want to dream—but Clark is warm and comfortable and he lets his eyes fall shut. Just for a little while, he tells himself, then he’ll see if Clark can look through the wall again and tell him how Bruce is.

**

It’s the movement that wakes Dick first. He feels sore and tired, and more than a little grumpy for it, grumbling as he’s jostled in the shift from one set of arms to another. 

“Shhh,” a voice murmurs and Dick goes still, all the sleep rushing out of his tensing muscles. The events of the night all come rushing back, slamming him with a dizzying montage. Patrol. Rain. Gunshot. Blood. Clark.

“Bruce?” The word claws itself out of him, desperate and hoarse.

“It’s alright, Master Dick,” Alfred says somewhere above Dick’s ear. It must be his arms that Dick is in now, still bundled up in Clark’s cape. “You just go back to sleep, we’ll wake you when Bruce is ready for visitors.”

Dick shakes his head, shaking away the fog of murky nightmares that probably weren’t nightmares at all. “He’s okay?” he asks. Bruce must be okay, if Alfred is here with Dick instead of helping Leslie, but rational thought isn’t good enough right now, Dick needs to hear it said.

“Master Bruce will be just fine,” Alfred assures him.

Dick lets himself relax. Alfred wouldn’t lie to him, not about this.

“When can I see him?” he asks. 

“I can let you see him now, if you like.”

Leslie is standing in the doorway. She looks tired, hair escaping from the strict bun she keeps it in, lines around her eyes pinched tight. But it’s not deep, bone-weary, bad-news tired. Dick scrambled to his feet, rushing through apologises as his bony knees and elbows make Alfred wince. 

“He’s okay?” he asks again, standing in front of Doctor Leslie. 

Leslie puts a hand on his shoulder, squeezing gently before she uses the hold to guide him further back into the clinic. “Come on,” she says, “you can see for yourself.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry this took so much longer than expected but happy ending is finally here!

Sleep, Leslie and Alfred both say, is the best thing for Bruce. Honestly Dick thinks having all his blood on the inside and not the outside is the best thing for Bruce, but he keeps that thought out himself.

Bruce sleeps for a long time. Dick watches him for a while, legs pulled up onto the chair so he can put his head on his knees. He’ll be able to see as soon as Bruce wakes up, and when Bruce opens his eyes, Dick should be the first thing he sees too. He knows what Bruce is like; he knows that he’ll be more worried about making sure Dick is okay than himself. So Dick is just going to sit here and wait until they’re both okay. However long it takes.

Clark’s cape is still wrapped around his shoulders. He’s going to have to give it back at some point, but not yet. Part of him is cold in the chilly air of the clinic, but mostly he wants to see if Bruce will make the same face that he makes when Dick wears Superman pyjamas, the one where he looks grumpy but is secretly all fond and gooey inside. Dick likes that face. 

He must nod off for a bit because he startles when a rough voice whispers his name, head snapping up. 

“Bruce!” he exclaims, feeling like jelly from the relief that crashes over him when he finds Bruce blinking at him, fuzzy and confused but awake. _Alive._ He wants to throw himself forward and hug his guardian, but the swath of white bandages around Bruce’s chest holds him back. Dick settles for grabbing the hand closest to him instead. 

“Dickie,” Bruce croaks. He winces and Dick imagines that he must hurt form the top of his head to the tips of his toes. 

There is movement in the hallway outside the room, the shuffle of footsteps as Clark no doubt hears that Bruce is awake and talking. Dick ignores it, focus entirely on Bruce. There’s a tiny part of him that hasn’t managed to shake the thought that if he looks away, Bruce might be gone when he looks back again.

“You’re not allowed to do that ever again,” he says seriously. 

Bruce turns his hand palm up so he can curl his fingers around Dick’s hand. “I’m sorry, chum,” he says, still quiet and croaky. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Dick feels like he’s going to cry all over again and he stubbornly wills the tears away. “Uncle Clark is the one you should apologise to,” he says with a sniff. “He left in the middle of work to come save your butt.”

Bruce raises an eyebrow, gaze wandering past Dick’s shoulder to find Clark in the doorway. Dick can only see Bruce’s side of the silent exchange they have, so he doesn’t know what Clark does, but it makes Bruce look away with a self-conscious “hm”.

“I’m glad I could help,” Clark speaks up, closer now, close enough to put a hand on Dick’s shoulder. Dick tips his head to smile up at him, only a little wobbly. He’s glad Clark could help as well; he doesn’t want to think about where they’d be if Superman hadn’t come when he called.

“Alfred was worried too,” Dick continues. “He’s probably going to yell at you.”

Bruce’s eyes have fallen closed again. He grunts, maybe at the thought of being in trouble with Alfred, or maybe in pain. The hand not curled around Dick’s twitches upwards, like he wants to reach for the hole in his chest. He aborts the movement though, twists his fingers in the blanket over his hips instead. Dick wants to lean over and grab that hand too, hold both of them tight the way Bruce would to him, but he’d have to lean awkwardly on Bruce to do that and he doesn’t want to hurt him even more.

“The bullets.” Bruce forces his eyes open, looking like he has to fight the pull of painkillers with every word. “Those men—“

It’s Clark who hushes him, a hand gently resting on Bruce’s leg as he shakes his head. “Always a one track mind with you, huh? Don’t worry about the case, it’s been taken care of. Gordon has all your bad guys in custody.”

Dick had almost forgotten about the case. As soon as that gunshot went off, he hadn’t given another thought to calling GCPD and letting them know there were thieves waiting to be arrested. He wonders when Clark had time to talk to Commissioner Gordon. While Dick was asleep, maybe? He frowns, feeling guilty for all sorts of non-gunshot-related reasons now. He should have remembered the case. What if the bad guys had gotten away because he forgot to call it in? 

What if the guy who shot Bruce had gotten away?

_But he didn’t_ , Dick reminds himself, _none of them did._ He leans into the hand on his shoulder, glad once again that Clark was there. 

Bruce relaxes back against his pillow. “Good,” he grunts. His eyes droop and he doesn’t fight to keep them open this time. 

“You should sleep some more, B,” Dick tells him. “We’ll be here when you wake up.”

Bruce mumbles something that might be “I know” or might just be nonsense. Between one breath and the next, he’s asleep. 

**

There is a series of tense, hushed discussions on the edge of Dick’s hearing. First between Alfred and Leslie, then Alfred and Clark, then Alfred and Clark and Leslie all together. Dick is so tired he doesn’t even care that the adults are keeping secrets from him. He stays by Bruce’s side even though Bruce is just sleeping, watching with eagle eyes every time Leslie comes in to check blood pressure and oxygen and a dozen other things Dick doesn’t really understand. 

It doesn’t occur to him that Leslie must have closed her clinic for the day because of them until Alfred comes in to say that they’re going to move Bruce back to the Batcave soon. They have an ambulance for these sorts of things, which makes it easier, but the sun is still high in the sky by the time they get Bruce settled in the infirmary in the Cave. He is hooked up to enough lines and monitors to fill a science fiction movie, but there is just enough room for Dick to curl up on the bed beside him. He almost doesn’t, too worried about accidentally hurting Bruce even more, but when Bruce pats the space beside him in invitation, Dick doesn’t have the strength to refuse. 

“I’m sorry too,” he whispers against Bruce’s chest. The hand on his head stills for a beat before the meditative back and forth of Bruce’s thumb continues. 

“Sorry for what?” It’s an honest, confused question. 

Dick lifts his head, pushes back a bit, even though all he wants is to press tight against Bruce’s side and not move for a very long time. “I couldn’t help you,” he says. “You were too heavy and I couldn’t... I couldn’t save you.”

Bruce shakes his head. He's more alert now, or forcing himself to be for Dick's sake. “You did,” he says, firm and soft all at once. “You did help me, Dickie. You put pressure on the wound just like you should have. You called for Clark when you realised you couldn’t carry me to the car. You did save me.”

Dick sniffles and finds that he’s crying again. Not the shuddering sobs from earlier, but quiet tears that keep sliding down his cheeks as fast as he rubs them away.

“Oh sweetheart.” A whisper that sounds as broken as Dick feels. “C’mere.” 

Bruce lifts his arm and Dick doesn’t hesitate before burrowing back into his side. He can hear the steady heartbeat beneath his ear and the rough cloth of bandages where his hands had slipped on blood before. 

“It’s okay,” Bruce keeps whispering against his hair. “Everything’s okay now.”

Dick knows it’s not as simple as that. Bruce is still hurt pretty badly. Alfred is still concerned, even though he pretends that he isn’t. But hearing the reassurances from Bruce’s mouth makes it easy to believe that everything really is okay.

“I love you, B,” Dick mumbles, words ghosting over the bullet wound that has been stitched up and bandaged and hidden from view. In a few months, it will just be another scar. “‘M really glad you’re okay.”

Bruce kisses the top of his head. “Me too, chum. Me too.” Two steady beats and then he adds. “I love you too.”

Dick smiles. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone for reading! And extra thank you to everyone who left kudos and comments along the way, I am terrible at replying but I appreciate every single one, they really helped motivate me when I was struggling with this one <3

**Author's Note:**

> Happy ending to follow as soon as I manage to wrangle the last few scenes into shape.


End file.
